Chapter 16 - The Liquidation of Illusions
The damp air inside the industrial warehouse in Long Island City smelled of rusted corrugated iron,
stale cardboard,
and the damp wool of raincoats worn by scavengers.
Fluorescent tubes hung from high steel beams,
flickering with a dull electric buzz,
illuminating three long rows of wooden pallets draped in gray canvas tarps.
This was where the court-appointed bankruptcy receiver had dumped twenty years of Jerome Chase’s vanity,
itemized by serial numbers,
appraised by indifferent clerks,
and offered to the highest bidder to satisfy Northgate’s creditor claims.
On Pallet Seventeen sat sixty-four bespoke tailored suits,
each one hand-stitched by Savile Row tailors,
their silk linings carefully unpicked where his embroidered initials had once announced his presence to the world.
Beside them lay nineteen pairs of handmade calfskin oxfords,
a dozen cashmere overcoats,
and a glass display case containing seventy-two vintage wristwatches that had once filled the custom walnut drawers of his Fifth Avenue dressing room.
At the back of the cold warehouse,
huddled near a concrete pillar to stay out of the draft,
stood Bridget Ford.
She wore a faded beige trench coat purchased from an off-rack discount store,
her collar turned up against the chill,
her blond hair pulled back into a messy,
unwashed knot beneath an ordinary wool cap.
There was no silk left in her life,
no driver waiting at the curb,
no platinum corporate credit card to shield her from the brutal reality of the sidewalk.
Her eyes,
rimmed with red and dark shadows,
stared at the glass case where an Audemars Piguet chronograph caught the fluorescent glare.
It was the watch Jerome had worn the night he took her to Paris on the chartered Gulfstream,
the night he had promised her that Leona was an empty husk of a woman who would surrender Northgate without firing a shot.
“Lot number one hundred forty-two,”
the auctioneer barked into a screeching microphone,
his voice echoing off the concrete walls like an iron mallet.
“Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshore,
eighteen-karat rose gold,
seized pursuant to federal restitution order number four-one-eight.
Opening bid,
twelve thousand dollars.
Do I hear twelve thousand?”
A dealer in a leather jacket raised a plastic paddle.
“Twelve thousand to the gentleman in row two.
Do I hear fourteen?”
Bridget reached into her pocket,
her fingers brushing against an eviction notice that had been taped to her Tribeca loft door two days prior.
The building management had changed the electronic locks at dawn,
placing two security guards outside her unit to ensure she did not remove a single lamp,
a single rug,
or a single painting that had been funded through Asteria Global Advisory.
She had seventy-four dollars in a newly opened checking account at a local credit union,
and her resume had become radioactive throughout every financial firm in New York City.
“Sold for twenty-two thousand dollars to paddle sixty-one,”
the auctioneer announced,
slamming his wooden gavel down with a sharp,
final crack.
Bridget flinched at the sound,
the noise ripping through her nerves like the slap Leona had delivered across her cheek at Selene.
She turned toward the metal exit door,
unable to watch the dismemberment of the fantasy that had destroyed her life.
As she pushed through the heavy door onto the wet asphalt,
a sleek black town car pulled slowly past the warehouse gate.
Through the tinted glass of the rear window,
Bridget caught a fleeting glimpse of a profile she would never forget:
Leona Chase,
dressed in an immaculate camel cashmere coat,
May you like
looking forward with eyes as steady and calm as the deep ocean,
not even bothering to glance at the warehouse where her ex-husband’s life was being sold off for spare parts.
